epic marriage

[Stephen]

Marriages between uncles (mother's brother, not father's) and nieces are
also common in the south. In fact, one of my classmates, an Iyengar girl
married her mom's brother not too long ago (approx. 10 yrs).

sujatha

-----Original Message-----
From: DEVARAKONDA VENKATA NARAYANA SARMA <narayana at HD1.VSNL.NET.IN>
To: INDOLOGY at LISTSERV.LIV.AC.UK <INDOLOGY at LISTSERV.LIV.AC.UK>
Date: Tuesday, September 01, 1998 12:28 PM
Subject: Re: epic marriage


>At 06:43 AM 9/1/98 +0200, you wrote:
>>Dear Indologists,
>>        I have a request about a marriage in the MBh, between arjuna and
>>subhadrA, the kRSNa's sister. A very important one: by it the continuity
of
>>the lineage will be assured with abhimanyu.
>>        But vasudeva, the subhadra's father was the brother of kuntI, the
>>arjuna's mother, and hence the wife and husband were very close relatives.
>>        Is such a marriage (between first crossed cousins) a legal one?
>>        If not, the fact that zUra (biological father of subhadrA and
>>kRSNa) gave his just born daughter to kuntibhoja, son of his paternal
aunt,
>>making him the legal father of kuntI, could make the marriage to be legal
>>(between third cousins)
>>
>
>Men marrying daughters of paternal aunts or maternal uncles are not only
>very common in South India but are preffered (atleast till recently). They
>are slightly on the decline now because of the spread of the knowledge
>of the bad effects of inbreading.
>
>regards,
>
>sarma.
>